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Monday, August 16, 2010

Make Your Own Doll House

Something that we have plenty of in this house are diaper boxes. They come into this house often and I always wonder what to do with them. I have used them to store old baby clothes, made them into doll beds with Lorelei's help, made one into a stuffed animal bus, recycled them and now made one into a doll house.

This box kept staring me in the face every time I rounded the corner so finally we got out our craft paper, glue and scissors and got to work. We started the doll house on Friday early in the morning and then had company so we set it aside.

Lorelei has been asking me all weekend if we were going to finish the doll house because she wanted to play with it. Today was the day.

When we were finished Lorelei put all kinds of guys to work in the house.

I couldn't help myself but to take some pictures. This is Lorelei's painting she made including the frame. She also was the one to glue it up and pick the spot in the house.

The other painting she made. I was the one who cut out the rectangles for her. She painted the picture, chose the spot of color she liked best, I cut it out and she glued it up.

Here is the view of the house. She helped cut out windows and the carpet. Lorelei also chose all the colors for everything and decided where everything should go. She sometimes told me where to glue it or she glued it herself.

Here she is playing with her doll house. I think she liked it. The brown piece of paper you see is a couch. When she started playing she asked "but where's the couch?" when I made the couch she then asked "but where's the remote? They need to watch T.V." The T.V. is the black rectangle she glued above the black and purple bookcase. She did choose the colors of the bookcase and told me what to draw in it as well.

Gluing the back of her painting, Lorelei is working on her house. She is always very serious when working on craft projects. That or she is goofing around and not listening. Mostly serious though.

Even Hannah climbed up into the chair and wanted to help. This is a painting Lorelei had already made, but Hannah was content just watching the activity.

More playing with her house! She absolutely loved it. The joy on her face was priceless. I watched her more than anything. Her role playing skills are reaching a whole new level of cuteness.

The finished product. This is how Lorelei set up the guys so they could all watch T.V. I learned something with this activity. 1) it was a little advanced 2) she loves telling me what to do 3) the glitter lights that are on the ceiling are too messy. She dumped the glitter.

This project was a bit hectic, but in the end she really loved it and loves playing with it so I am happy with how it turned out in the end. I would offer advice of breaking the project into a couple of days if it's with a younger child and relax. Messes will happen, but let the kids enjoy the crafting. You too!